Liberalism and the Interpretive Turn: Rival Approaches or Cross-Purposes?

This paper calls attention to the interpretive, and humanist liberal, strand of thinking that is most clearly evident in the development of Charles Taylor's ideas. Recovering it makes it possible to see why the differences between Taylor and Rawls should be seen, not in terms of the erstwhile disputes between liberals and communitarians, but instead as over issues of method, and in particular about the independence or autonomy of political philosophy. Rawls and Taylor exemplify distinct modes of postanalytic liberal theorizing that emerged in the late twentieth century out of two very different responses to challenges within analytic philosophy's discursive beginnings that continue to divide the discipline to this day. Their juxtaposition, therefore, sheds light on how such methodological commitments animate normative prerogatives and generates important resources for thinking about the very powers and limits of political theory.